


on a knife's edge

by SeasideFantasties



Series: Terror Bingo Fills [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Unhealthy Relationships, hickey is a very stinky garbage man who should not be trusted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23402341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeasideFantasties/pseuds/SeasideFantasties
Summary: "You are Cornelius Hickey now. And by the end of all of this, you will ensure that everyone remembers it."(Hickey worms his way on board, and schemes.)
Relationships: William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey
Series: Terror Bingo Fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678210
Kudos: 5
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	on a knife's edge

You don’t know how they buy the lie that the man known as Cornelius Hickey has now grown a beard, and that’s why he looks so strange and nearly unrecognizable. How the lieutenant that meets you doesn’t question how an accomplished caulker suddenly doesn’t know his way around a ship (at least of this size, an excuse which sounds weak even to your ears) is even more unbelievable. You cannot bring yourself to care about such trivial matters, however, nor shed a tear for the man they undoubtedly once knew, now reduced to a rotting corpse bobbing somewhere in Regent’s Canal. If they cannot discern that you are not in fact the man they assume you to be, it is because of their own failings, not yours. You know from experience that men of power, those with utmost authority in life, tend not to look much farther than the ends of their own noses at the best of times. Pompous braggarts, the lot of them, who have paid you no mind since the beginning. Why should this instance be any different?   
  
Regardless, you manage to worm your way onto the ship and become a part of its crew, with no one being any the wiser as to the depths of your deception. Lying and manipulation has become your craft over the years, and you wield the knowledge these practices have given you like a weapon now, spinning your tales until your presence on the ship is unquestionable by anyone. It certainly helps that the original Hickey spilled so many of his secrets to you when given the right motivation, chirping like a canary at your side as he told you of his family, his struggles, his home life. It is amazing what will slip out of a man should you coax enough cheap gin into his system- the same gin that had made him too sloppy to avoid the slashes of your knife in the dark alleyway, not long after.   
  
The days blend together as you steadily head farther and farther north. You strike up an easy kind of comradery with a few of the men, mainly the Marines on board, and you fall into a deeper relationship with Gibson, a wiry fellow with an uneasy smile. When he kisses you, it’s hesitant, like he believes you to be a porcelain doll that will crumble into pieces at even the slightest touch. Sex with him is somehow even more underwhelming. But it is still sex, and you have gone such a long time without the touch of another human being, be it man or woman. Part of you is so desperate for intimacy that you allow his unique way of showing affection, allow him to fuck you so slowly that you nearly fall asleep from the monotony of it all. You content yourself with the fact that you can always dispose of him later once you find a newer, shinier plaything. You will let him think you answer to him, that you truly want him, when all along he was just another chess piece upon the board.   
  
Even when the ships become frozen in the wastes, you do not panic as the other men do. The ice will melt and allow passage to the Sandwich Islands that you have been dreaming of ever since you stepped on board, and even if it doesn’t, you will make this barren land work to your advantage. You do not care if the men grow to hate you because of the decisions you make, for any attention is attention you will bask in. No longer will you be overlooked. No longer will you be forced to scrounge through rubbish heaps to find your next meal, huddling on the cold streets while the higher-ups of the city thumb their noses at you. No longer will you be E.C., unwanted and overlooked, seen as powerless and sniveling and _pathetic_.   
  
You are Cornelius Hickey now. And by the end of all of this, you _will_ ensure that everyone remembers it.

**Author's Note:**

> Was really lost on how I was going to complete the prompt for Hickey until I realized "eh, I can just write a short drabble from his POV _but with a twist_ " and it seems to have worked out in my favor. Regardless of how much I dislike Hickey's character, I can agree on the notion that he's a very faceted and dynamic character, and trying to get into his head space to determine just what exactly makes him tick was a challenging writing exercise. Hickey strikes me as the kind of man that will be someone's best friend as long as they have an actual use to him, and when they no longer fulfill that use he tosses them aside- I don't think he's really shown to care about anyone on the show, implicitly. Even when Gibson rejects him, he doesn't seem all that torn up about it- hence my headcanon that he was more just pitying the man with a "well if this is the best romantic relationship that I can get at the moment I might as well take advantage of it" kind of situation. 
> 
> I suppose you could argue that even his saving people at the Carnivale was him trying to make himself look good, and not out of any actual desire to "spare" the other sailors from their fate. Far be it from me to personally diagnose a character with anything unless it's implicitly stated in the show canon, but I like to think Hickey is a perfect example of someone with sociopathic tendencies. Unless someone is giving him attention- be it positive, negative, or whatever- he couldn't give two shits about them. It's almost like James's personality if James was allowed to lose basically all of his moral scruples, and that's what really makes Hickey chilling to me. He's just such a startling contrast to the other men that it was devilish fun to write for him. 
> 
> Also fun fact: I was literally almost considering making this a joke fic along the lines of that one Reylo fic I've seen where the whole text would just be "Goodsir picks Hickey up and dunks him in the garbage bin. Fucking obliterated". 
> 
> (Written for Terror Bingo 2019, prompt was "Cornelius Hickey")


End file.
